EDIT: Since Relic has become its own entity again, they've been doing lots of updates on CoH3. Its changed quite a lot, and mostly for the better!




I really hate to downvote this, but its a solid 'meh' that is getting worse . I really liked CoH2 and I think this one improves on a lot of the grievances of that (e.g. over-arty shelling making infantry obsolete). I like the campaign and, while its not going to win any awards for its story, its a refreshing way to add some continuity to a skirmish manager. I only play single-player and there's a couple of which are great for adding the entire roster to each faction for all units (means you don't get shoe-horned into only a couple of 'key' units), so my review won't talk about the multiplayer aspects.

The pros:
- I like the unit balancing, the need for infantry even in the late game is pretty nice, and you need to keep up your mobile HQ to ensure you're not losing your best units
- Animations and tank engagements are good, I've found myself a couple of times just watching 2 evenly matched tanks duke it out to see which one is the lucky one (hoping its mine). I feel like that's a difficult thing to get right, but they've done well there. Also, if a 2nd tank comes along, it will shift the balance quite realistically.
- I like the variation of units for each faction. There's a good variety of tanks, infantry and support units that allow for a well complimented army.
- I love the ability to tow heavy weapons.

The cons:
- Pathing is awful and is somehow getting worse with each update. The final straw for me writing this review was watching my tank get stuck against another friendly tank in a field (no obstacles) that was trying to retreat - they just stared at each other and didn't move. Generally the pathing in CoH games has been lackluster, but it seems they set themselves a personal challenge to make it the worst yet before firing all the devs for this one. It is genuinely the worst pathing I've ever experienced in any game.
- The vanilla roster for each faction is lacking. It's pretty much a race to get to the big tanks and steamroll through with them. Mods help with this, but shouldn't be relying on mods to make the game fun.
- The campaign mechanics are pretty bad. Lots of unexplained options or annoying forced actions (e.g. you can auto resolve this big battle, but you MUST play this little skirmish that makes no difference). Lots of extra actions like shelling with your arty brigade... but they don't really do anything.
- And finally, the main reason you shouldn't buy this game: the updates are making the game worse, not better. I think this game has a good amount of potential, but only if the devs know what they're doing/actually improve the game. Recently Relic fired most of the devs (I don't know if they're being replaced or just downsizing, but the core dev squad is gone) and whether its new and incompetent devs or big-wig execs pushing the devs to peddle pure ♥♥♥♥ , I don't know - but the final result of their input adds a minor amount but breaks a major amount. Let me give you an example. The latest patch added a new map (isn't that what the workshop is for?), not particularly something that players were desperate for, but it also tried to fix a whole bunch with planes. Instead, planes now 'die' but then fly around a bit more and crash in a random spot. On top of that, there's also a couple of bugs where pointers are gone or the map gets warped (because of destruction) beyond its bounds, so you click somewhere and it doesn't register because the mesh is warped. And this was a minor patch . I'm convinced that pathing is worse too, but 'awful' and 'abysmal' are quite difficult to distinguish, i guess...

TL;DR:
Game had potential upon release, but poor management has meant that this is already worse and doesn't show much promise of getting better

TL;DR even that last bit:
"It's dead, Jim"

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk

EDIT: Since Relic has become its own entity again, they've been doing lots of updates on CoH3. Its changed quite a lot, and mostly for the better! I really hate to downvote this, but its a solid 'meh' that is getting [b] worse [/b]. I really liked CoH2 and I think this one improves on a lot of the grievances of that (e.g. over-arty shelling making infantry obsolete). I like the campaign and, while its not going to win any awards for its story, its a refreshing way to add some continuity to a skirmish manager. I only play single-player and there's a couple of which are great for adding the entire roster to each faction for all units (means you don't get shoe-horned into only a couple of 'key' units), so my review won't talk about the multiplayer aspects. The pros: - I like the unit balancing, the need for infantry even in the late game is pretty nice, and you need to keep up your mobile HQ to ensure you're not losing your best units - Animations and tank engagements are good, I've found myself a couple of times just watching 2 evenly matched tanks duke it out to see which one is the lucky one (hoping its mine). I feel like that's a difficult thing to get right, but they've done well there. Also, if a 2nd tank comes along, it will shift the balance quite realistically. - I like the variation of units for each faction. There's a good variety of tanks, infantry and support units that allow for a well complimented army. - I [b] love [/b] the ability to tow heavy weapons. The cons: - Pathing is [b] awful[/b] and is somehow getting worse with each update. The final straw for me writing this review was watching my tank get stuck against another friendly tank in a field (no obstacles) that was trying to retreat - they just stared at each other and didn't move. Generally the pathing in CoH games has been lackluster, but it seems they set themselves a personal challenge to make it the worst yet before firing all the devs for this one. It is genuinely the worst pathing I've ever experienced in any game. - The vanilla roster for each faction is lacking. It's pretty much a race to get to the big tanks and steamroll through with them. Mods help with this, but shouldn't be relying on mods to make the game fun. - The campaign mechanics are pretty bad. Lots of unexplained options or annoying forced actions (e.g. you can auto resolve this big battle, but you MUST play this little skirmish that makes no difference). Lots of extra actions like shelling with your arty brigade... but they don't really do anything. - And finally, the main reason you [b] shouldn't [/b] buy this game: the updates are making the game worse, not better. I think this game has a good amount of potential, but only if the devs know what they're doing/actually improve the game. Recently Relic fired most of the devs (I don't know if they're being replaced or just downsizing, but the core dev squad is gone) and whether its new and incompetent devs or big-wig execs pushing the devs to peddle [spoiler] pure shit [/spoiler], I don't know - but the final result of their input adds a minor amount but breaks a major amount. Let me give you an example. The latest patch added a new map (isn't that what the workshop is for?), not particularly something that players were desperate for, but it also tried to fix a whole bunch with planes. Instead, planes now 'die' but then fly around a bit more and crash in a random spot. On top of that, there's also a couple of bugs where pointers are gone or the map gets warped (because of destruction) beyond its bounds, so you click somewhere and it doesn't register because the mesh is warped. [b] And this was a minor patch [/b]. I'm convinced that pathing is worse too, but 'awful' and 'abysmal' are quite difficult to distinguish, i guess... TL;DR: Game had potential upon release, but poor management has meant that this is already worse and doesn't show much promise of getting better TL;DR even that last bit: "It's dead, Jim" Thanks for coming to my Ted talk